I used to live in the same village (Burnham). He claims to be born there, but I'll tell you straight that if you're pregnant in Burnham, your kids will be from Slough....
For clarity re- Uncle Freddie. The evil Hall Clan are fully responsible for selling out the club to loveable Mikey. It was sold from under his feet, whilst Freddie Shepherd was in hospital.
Uncle Freddy spin you that one? No surprise there. Freddys petty pilfering and misdirection is on a par with Ashley's brazen "fck you lot".
It was back in a nice age of football without the information everywhere we get now, so for the most part I didn't care or know as much. However it's hard to say he was anything more than a cancerous polyp. Souness, SBR sacking, Owen, Boumsong. That guy really fcked us when we should have entered a golden era. If he'd been anything less than worthless we could be a top 7 club and then some.
I shall try and be serious with regard to the guy. The way I look at it, there was the good and the bad. No matter how bad it ended, under his stewardship, this club was sitting at the top table of English Football for the only period in my life. Of course, mistakes were made, the likes of Michael Owen for instance. But, there were very few complaints when he signed, as Shepherd did the very thing fans want Ashley to do now - Splash the Cash. He gave us what WE wanted for the best part, even if the club couldn't afford it - but hindsight is a wonderful thing. All in all, I wouldn't complain about him, unlike, Ashley, who in my opinion, is quite happy to let the club stagnate. He wont gamble, but, strangely enough that's one of the traits Shepherd now gets lambasted for.
Ashley will certainly gamble, but unfortunately it is gambling that we have enough in the squad to scrape league survival.
He doesn't have any obligation to put money in. I think he knows fine well that football clubs are a never-ending money pit if you start putting money in; you never get it back, and he's no different to most owners in that regard. We aren't a charity and shouldn't expect an owner to pump his own money in; we are basically run as a not-for-profit entity these days and that's okay by me. As for the debt on the books, it's all interest free and it doesn't make any difference to the day to day running of the club or it's ability to move forward. He could write it off the books but when it came to selling us he'd still want his money back on what he's spent on the club. Again, it's an understandable standpoint. In the short-term I will throw a bit of criticism his way in that it is in everyone's interest to get players in now and he could provide a short-term loan to the club based on future income we receive later this season. We all acknowledge he's just not interested though and not ambitious but it is what it is until Sheikh Al-Moneybags comes in and buys the club and the Champions League title. I've thought about the commercial side of NUFC over the last few months and I think you have a point about SD advertising. I thought it was sort of fair enough in the beginning that he paid off the loans and turned them to interest free loans to himself and in turn got advertising in return. The club benefitted financially but how long should that go on? When were those loans due to be paid off? It's been 10 years now. There should probably be an income stream back in place there by now, although I suspect it's not worth as much money as people think it is. I don't know what is happening with the sleeve sponsorship - I'm confident they will get somebody to sponsor since it will be free money for them but what the hold up is I have no idea. Training facility should be as good as any other club our size or better, yes, but, again, I don't expect Ashley to stick his own money in. The club should be able to fund it.
Just a thought, and hopefully a very wrong thought.......... Is it possible that there is more to this tax case than we realise and the club knows there is no point in splashing out big money to stay up when it may be out of our hands already??
